Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy PDF
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The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture RESISTING THE BACKLASH STREET PROTEST IN ITALY Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos, and Lorenzo Zamponi Resisting the Backlash Drawing upon interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’ original social movement database, this book examines the development of social movements in resistance to perceived political “regression” and a growing right-wing backlash. With a focus on Italy and the reaction to increasing inequalities and welfare state retrenchment policies, it examines opposition to the government and state authorities on a number of issues. Triangulating different types of data, it sheds light on the ability of citizens to organise in the streets and addresses crucial matters in social movement research, including the significance to political mobilization of grievances, class, gender, and generational differences, as well as considering the network dynamics of micro-mobilization, visions of Europe, and the role of interactions with major political institutions. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in social movements and political mobilization. Donatella della Porta is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Social Movements Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. Her recent books include How Social Movements Can Save Democracy: Democratic Innovations from Below; Social Movements: An Introduction; Discursive Turns and Critical Junctures: Debating Citizenship after the Charlie Hebdo Attacks; and Where Did the Revolution Go? Contentious Politics and the Quality of Democracy. Niccolò Bertuzzi is Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of International Studies at the University of Trento, Italy. Daniela Chironi is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. Chiara Milan is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. Martín Portos is CONEX-Plus Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of Social Sciences at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. He is the author of Grievances and Public Protest: Political Mobilisation in Spain in the Age of Austerity. Lorenzo Zamponi is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture Series editor: Professor Hank Johnston San Diego State University, USA Published in conjunction with Mobilization: An International Quarterly, the premier research journal in the field, this series publishes a broad range of re- search in social movements, protest, and contentious politics. This is a growing field of social science research that spans sociology and political science as well as anthropology, geography, communications, and social psychology. Enjoying a broad remit, the series welcome works on the following topics: social move- ment networks; social movements in the global South; social movements, pro- test, and culture; personalist politics, such as living environmentalism, guerrilla gardens, anticonsumerist communities, anarchist-punk collectives; and emergent repertoires of contention. Nationalist Movements Explained Comparisons from Canada, Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland Maurice Pinard Racialized Protest and the State Resistance and Repression in a Divided America Edited by Hank Johnston and Pamela Oliver Power and Protest at an American University No Confidence, No Fear Edited by Ellen Carnaghan and Kathryn E. Kuhn Exiled Activism Political Mobilization in Egypt and England David McKeever Resisting the Backlash Street Protest in Italy Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ The-Mobilization-Series-on-Social-Movements-Protest-and-Culture/book-series/ ASHSER1345 Resisting the Backlash Street Protest in Italy Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos, and Lorenzo Zamponi First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi The right of Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos, and Lorenzo Zamponi to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Names: Della Porta, Donatella, 1956- author. | Bertuzzi, Niccolò, author. | Chironi, Daniela, author. | Milan, Chiara, author. | Portos, Martín, author. | Zamponi, Lorenzo, author. Title: Resisting the backlash : street protest in Italy / Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: The mobilization series on social movements, protest, and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021056629 (print) | LCCN 2021056630 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032180519 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032201672 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003262558 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Protest movements--Italy. | Social movements--Italy. | Welfare state--Italy. | Italy--Social policy. Classification: LCC HM883 .D44 2022 (print) | LCC HM883 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/4--dc23/eng/20211230 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056629 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056630 ISBN: 978-1-032-18051-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-20167-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-26255-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003262558 Typeset in Times New Roman by MPS Limited, Dehradun Contents List of Figures vi List of Tables vii Acknowledgement ix 1 Resisting the backlash in the streets: An introduction 1 2 Bringing grievances back in? Socio-economic inequalities and the political participation of protesters 27 3 Generations and gender in the mobilisation against the backlash 56 4 The dynamics of micro-mobilisation 79 5 Social movements and institutional politics 102 6 Politicising Europe in the streets 128 7 Conclusion 149 Index 166 Figures 2.1 Coefficient plots with 95% confidence intervals (models 3, 6, 9, and 12, Table 2.2) 40 3.1 Involvement of protestors in organisations, Italy 65 5.1 Solutions against neoliberalism 116 6.1 Attitudes towards European integration (mean) of protesters participating in our protest survey and of the sample of the general population participating in the REScEU survey 134 6.2 Fear about the process of EU integration in protesters participating in our protest survey and in the sample of the general population participating in the REScEU survey 135 6.3 Blame for the crisis in protesters participating in our protest survey and in the sample of the general population participating in the REScEU survey 137 6.4 Satisfaction with policies carried out by EU institutions and the Italian government among protesters participating in our protest survey 139 6.5 Satisfaction with policies carried out by EU institutions and the Italian government in protesters participating in our protest survey, across changes in the Italian government 140 6.6 Fear about the process of European integration in protesters participating in our protest survey, across generational differences 141 6.7 Alternatives regarding the future of the EU, in protesters participating in our protest survey, across levels of intensity of participation 143 Tables 1.1 Sampled protest events 15 2.1 Descriptive statistics of variables related to political participation, grievances, socio-demographics, political attitudes, and social capital/ networks 35 2.2 Logit regressions (models 1–3) and OLS regressions with robust standard errors (models 4–12). DV = electoral turnout (models 1–3), levels of organisational membership (models 4–6), levels of non-electoral political participation (models 7–9), and intensity of protest (models 1–12) 38 3.1 Age of participants in demonstrations, Italy 63 3.2 Protesters’ frequency of participation, Italy 64 3.3 Influence of gender and age on protesters’ “frequency of participation” 67 3.4 Protesters’ political orientation, Italy 68 3.5 Protesters’ agreement with the following statements 68 3.6 Importance assigned to different issues 72 4.1 Percentage of respondents who claim to be passive (financial supporters, i.e. “giving money”) and active members (voluntary commitment, i.e. “giving time”) of each type of organisation or association 85 4.2 Crosstabulation of organisational membership by level of commitment 86 4.3 Crosstabulation of form of protest event participation by level of commitment 87 4.4 Crosstabulation of source of information of the events by level of commitment 89 4.5 Descriptive statistics of variables related to motivations for participating in the surveyed protest events 91 4.6 Ordinal probit regression model. DV: level of commitment among Italian protesters (LC, MC, and HC) 94 5.1 Trust in political institutions and other actors (DEMOS—split by type of event and frequency of protest—and CCC protest) survey data 107 viii Tables 5.2 Satisfaction with the way that democracy works 109 5.3 Satisfaction with the Italian government in addressing specific policy areas 111 5.4 Satisfaction with EU institutions in addressing specific policy areas 112 5.5 Solutions against neoliberalism 117 5.6 Affective ties with different territorial levels 118 6.1 Political values of protesters participating in our protest survey 133 6.2 Distribution across the distributive and cultural values of protesters participating in our protest survey 133 6.3 Attitudes towards political integration in protesters participating in our protest survey 134 Acknowledgement This volume draws on materials collected under the framework of two research projects hosted at the Center on Social Movement Studies COSMOS, Scuola Normale Superiore [PI Donatella della Porta]: “Critical Young Europeans” (CRY_OUT) and “Democracy in the EU and the Potential of a European Society” (DEMOS), funded by the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca and Scuola Normale Superiore. Based on the qualitative data of these projects, two special issues have seen the light, namely “Europeanisation from below: Still time for another Europe?” (European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2020, Vol. 7, issue 3) and “Generations in Movements” (American Behavioral Scientist, 2019, Vol. 63, issues 10-11). We are grateful to our colleagues at the Scuola Normale Superiore for the discussion throughout the years, and especially to Carlotta Caciagli and Riccardo E. Chesta for their invaluable help in data collection and coding of protest event data. All six authors contributed equally to the volume and were involved in the final drafting of every single chapter. In order to comply with Italian legislation, we declare that Martín Portos wrote the first draft of chapter 2, Daniela Chironi the first half of chapter 3, Chiara Milan the second half of chapter 3, Niccolò Bertuzzi chapter 4, Donatella della Porta chapter 5 and Lorenzo Zamponi chapter 6. As for chapter 1, della Porta drafted the “Theoretical focus” section, Zamponi the “Prologue”, Bertuzzi and Milan “the context”, Portos the “methodological design”, and Chironi “this volume”. In the concluding chapter 7, Bertuzzi drafted the paragraph “some conclusions”, Chironi and Zamponi “Resisting the political backlash in Italy”, della Porta and Portos “The broad debate on the development of progressive milieus”, and Milan “Avenues for further inquiry”.
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